Johan's Rite
by satisfiedcat
Summary: Johan struggles with carnal needs. Although this fanfic doesn't focus on any particular pairing, there are mentions of Johan / Nina. Warning: Heavy sexual themes, brief allusion to molestation.


Much of life is made up of rituals.

Some people wrest themselves from sleep with only the preparation of their morning coffee to motivate them. Others may be partial to reading at a particular time in a specific place where they feel safe. Such patterns can range from the mundane to the disturbing , from a casual morning jog to an evening of quiet mutilation. Such is life.

Johan had rituals, too. Like most humans, he clung to them, clawing to keep them close - however, as sometimes happens with such things, they clawed back.

He kept in control most of the time. To all who met him, he was a cool, collected young gentleman who appeared completely normal for all intents and purposes. He preferred to keep it that way.

However, it is impossible to keep a beast in check at all times. Monsters have insatiable appetites, and to deny them their fill is to wish madness upon oneself. Johan had to let loose his monster, lest it devour him.

So, each night, when sleep wouldn't come (it never did) and books weren't enough (they never were), Johan would begin to dream. He would close his eyes and imagine a woman, or a man, coming into his room. He had met this person an uncountable amount of times in his life. Sometimes, it was a boy he'd known long ago in Kinderheim 511 who had first shown Johan what "men" do, or a teacher from one of the strange classes that had stolen almost all of Johan's memories away, or the person was drawn from the memories he'd made more recently of whores who had known their art all too well. On his most treasured nights his other half would walk silently through the door, though she only came occasionally, and her features wavered between those of their shared past and separated futures.

The person would always sit on the edge of Johan's bed, their phantom weight an imagined dip in the mattress they now shared. They would touch him, but this was where things always got tricky. Johan had trouble turning his own hand into that of the ghost's, and his fantasy would become fragmented, or even completely broken, by this forced reality. But regardless of whether or not his dream shattered or remained whole, he always finished. Always.

Occasionally, his lonely forays in the dark left him unsatisfied, and he would sate his hunger in the arms of a prostitute. He acted completely uninterested in them, but they were good at what they did and thus sufficed as outlets for him. With his handsome features and considerable wealth, they were all too happy to oblige, and usually he left them feeling, if not happy, at least appeased.

Generally, however, he tried to avoid them. It was only when his yearning became too much that he finally broke and sought out a warm body to fill his bed.

This yearning was the worst part of Johan's rituals - the aching need for human contact. Not just any contact, either - he required true intimacy, something that could make his bones shiver to the marrow, shaking his very foundation with its power. His sister could do that with just the brush of her lips or the innocent touch of her fingers against his sensitive neck - that was, in fact, the reason he wore turtlenecks so frequently. He didn't want anyone to stumble upon that particular secret of his.

This clandestine need was nigh impossible to obtain, however. It seemed as if, the more Johan tried and tried to truly feel human contact, the more numb he became to it. Sex was meaningless. The hand pawing down his groin might as well have been that of a ghost, for all that he felt it and all that it felt him. Perhaps he himself was a ghost and the whores that took him within them were simply taking in matter, not tactile flesh, if there was a difference between the two. It always surprised him when he reached his peak and released, as if his body knew the mechanics of what it was supposed to do and obliged readily while he simply watched, gasping slightly in what may have been pleasure. He was never sure.

Despite his lack of any real or true feeling, he often found himself idly glancing at people and imagining what he might do with them. He never let these fantasies become too involved, but oftentimes he would later play them out in their entirety in his mind, if only to force them away. It wasn't that these people meant anything to him or that he thought they could mean anything to him - it was only their meat and their moans that drew his obsession. After reaching his private zenith, he would stare at the fluid in his hand without seeing it while a profound yet hollow despair resounded through the confines of his body.

This despair and the aforementioned rituals were Johan's constant companions. Johan's patterns and habits plagued him and made him sick but they were also what kept him alive. Though his hope for true intimacy dwindled and died in his thoughts, his body still searched for it, eternally finding only fleeting fulfillment and achingly painful disappointment.


End file.
